Ice fishing is popular sport, enjoyed by countless anglers worldwide. Typically, an angler drills or chops a hole through the ice overlying a body of water. The ice chunks are removed from the hole. Then a fishing line complete with a hook, sinker and bait is dropped into the hole. An angler in most situations will use a bobber. One problem commonly encountered while ice fishing is that of the water refreezing. Refreezing is a problem in at least two specific situations.
First, many anglers use slip bobbers. Slip bobbers are bobbers that are not fixedly attached to the line. Line is fed through a tube extending through the bobber. The bobber slides along the line between two predetermined points. At one of these points is a bobber stop, which determines how far away from the bait that the bobber can get. The second point is a sinker or the bait itself. The second point is only important in the sense that the angler wants the bobber to get close to the end of the line without the bobber falling off. When bobber fishing in deep water, the sliding ability of the slip bobber is a significant help to the angler retrieving line into a reel.
The fishing line slides through the channel in the slip bobber as line is brought into the reel. This channel comes into contact with water when the wet fishing line is pulled through the bobber. The water in the channel will freeze on days when the ambient temperature is below freezing. Ice inside the channel reduces or destroys the ability of slip bobbers to slide along the fishing line. This reformation of ice is a problem for the angler.
The second problem with refreezing of water is that the ice fishing hole can freeze over. When the hole freezes over, the bobber and/or the fishing line gets stuck in the ice. The freezing of the line or the bobber to the hole creates unnecessary resistance on the bait. The resistance can spook the fish and spoil the day of fishing. To solve this problem anglers routinely clean the ice out of the fishing hole. Colder days require more cleaning. Cleaning the ice from the hole is a burdensome chore for the angler, especially in the cold weather.